


Last Rites Discarded

by Cryptographic_Delurk



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Dragon Age II Quest - The Deep Roads Expedition, Gen, M/M, paternalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29612301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptographic_Delurk/pseuds/Cryptographic_Delurk
Summary: “Typical,” Carver shuddered. “I’m here dying, and my sister’s so busy running around trying to fix everything that I’m stuck withyou.”Carver’s so far Blight poisoned, he can no longer walk through the Deep Roads unassisted. Anders wishes he had solutions and not just answers.
Relationships: Anders & Carver Hawke, Anders/Carver Hawke, Anders/Jean-Marc Stroud
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Last Rites Discarded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hezjena2023](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hezjena2023/gifts).



> Hez gave me this prompt:
> 
> Hawke sibling and Anders in the Deep Roads? Did they get to know the sibling well? Was Anders unsure about finding Stroud? What was Stroud and Anders’s relationship like beforehand, did they know each other well? Did Anders have any regrets after leaving the sibling with the Grey Wardens?
> 
> And then she hand-fed me a set of slightly cracky Anders/Stroud headcanons that I have reproduced here verbatim.
> 
> And big thank you to [piecesofsolas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofsolas/) for beta-ing for me <3
> 
> Content warning for sexual harassment, ambient homophobia, depression & suicidality, predatory vibes, and nobody being a nice person.

He forgot for a moment where he was. He forgot who he was, even, and tried not to panic as he wracked his fragmented mind for reminders. Life had splintered into little refracting pieces, each moment a little sliver of cognisance cut free from context or memory, each a world unto itself. Anders hurried to gather up the shards.

Anders was terrible about that and he always had been. When the magic in his palms brought someone back from the edge, it seemed like nobody would ever die again. The flooding adrenaline when he tore a Templar apart at the jaw would be all the energy he needed to carry himself through the carnage of tearing apart the entire, endlessly refilling Order. When you fucked you were ready to love someone forever. And when you were locked alone in the dark and numb and cold, all of Thedas was the size of your dungeon cell and you’d never be free. Ever.

The Deep Roads were particularly dark along this stretch. The illuminating runes along the walls had burned out and died at irregular intervals and, even though Anders had the maps in his pack and Justice in his heart to remind him, he could not place the groaning shuddering breaths of the man pressed into his side and did not know why he walked forward, save to make it to the next patch of light along the tunnel.

The man stumbled and slipped back, and Anders readjusted his grip automatically. He pulled at the arm slung over his shoulder, dug his fingers into the other man’s hip and the muscles along his buttocks, and hoisted him up and forward. Anders had something to run from, and they were falling behind.

“Stop groping at me,” Carver snarled. But it lacked the energy it normally would have.

“We’re falling behind,” Anders said. But something about Carver’s voice was grounding, and Anders remembered that they really did have something to fall behind from. “We shouldn’t let your sister and Varric pull so far ahead.” His eyes darted forward, looking for their silhouettes. And then he turned to Carver, who he could not see in the darkness, but felt pulsing with the taint. “And if you think that was a grope, you haven’t felt much of the real thing, have you?” Anders added. He pulled Carver’s arm further up his shoulder and fondled his ass with his other hand – a little too brusque to be properly affectionate.

Carver startled and hurried forward the next few steps, as if fleeing Anders’s wandering hands instead of just matching his pace. “Disgusting old lecher,” he grumbled darkly, but it only took a few more steps for the exhaustion and sickness to overtake him again. He slowed, and gradually relaxed completely against Anders. Carver didn’t even complain when he started slipping once more from Anders’s grip, and Anders had to heavy-handedly pull him back up.

And, Sweet Maker, Anders did not want to be here. He did not want to be back in these reeking, claustrophobic tunnels. He did not want to have to lug around a boy just as tall and several dozen pounds heavier than he was. Hawke should have brought someone else with her. Aveline, maybe, since she was probably the only one who wouldn’t have trouble carrying someone Carver’s size about.

But if it was anyone other than him, there wouldn’t have been anywhere to carry Carver to, would there have been?

They continued along in the dark for a while, when another set of footsteps entered their sphere. Varric’s voice broke through like the advent of a new star.

“Blondie. Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Anders gathered himself. “Everything alright?”

Varric sighed. “Look, I know you have your hands full with little Hawke-”

“Don’t call me that,” Carver groaned.

Anders, who once more hefted Carver further up onto his shoulder, was inclined to agree. “Doesn’t feel very little to me.”

Varric was not dissuaded. “Well, I could really use your help talking some sense into the other little Hawke up there. She’s running herself ragged dashing back and forth up and down these tunnels, trying to scout ahead for the Wardens… I think we should all take a moment to rest.”

“Yes,” Carver jumped on the chance to agree. “Some rest sounds really good right about now. I’m so exhausted I can hardly walk.”

“You’re not exhausted,” Anders disagreed. “You’re Blight sick.”

“Maybe you just want an excuse to keep pawing at me,” Carver snarled.

“Maker’s breath! Nobody wants to paw at you!” Anders snapped back. “Look, rest isn’t going to fix this. You think you’ll lie down for a while and you’ll be less tired, but you won’t be. You’ll just be giving the taint longer to sink in before we can intercept the Wardens.”

“Blondie?” Varric prompted, with a tired sigh in his voice.

Anders hesitated. _Disappointing Varric was…_ He took a breath and redirected the thought. Disappointing Varric was necessary.

“I’m sorry, Varric. I think Hawke’s right. We need to keep moving if we’re going to rendezvous with the Wardens.”

Anders heard a sigh come out of the darkness. He could see in his mind’s eye the way Varric would pinch his brow and shake his head. “Alright, alright, Blondie. We should try to stay together at least though. You two try to hurry it up, and I’ll go see if I can rein Hawke back in a bit.”

There was a thump-thump as Varric proceeded forward at a faster pace. Anders heaved Carver forward. Rubble crushed beneath their feet.

For a moment, it was just their struggling breaths, but then they walked back into dim runelight and Anders could see the strain in Carver’s face as he wheezed.

“Typical,” he shuddered. “I’m here dying, and my sister’s so busy running around trying to fix everything that I’m stuck with _you_.”

Anders looked forward down the tunnel, but the runes had died again and he could not easily see where Hawke and Varric had darted ahead. He couldn’t sense any darkspawn nearby, at least.

“She’s doing it because she cares about you,” he reminded Carver. “Because she hasn’t given up on you.”

“ _Stop_ ,” Carver spat. “Maker, you’re worse than my father: mages and templars and mages, respect your blighted elders, and _the reason your sister is acting like a tit is because she loves you, Carver_.” Carver coughed. “Just stop.”

Anders noticed that Carver seemed to be sinking well into his role as Incredibly Difficult Patient though, because instead of pushing Anders away he leaned more heavily on his shoulder and turned his face down into Anders’s neck. His breath was damp and it tickled Anders’s throat.

“Did you cling to him this way too?” Anders snorted moodily.

“Shut up. You’re disgusting,” Carver said, again without any real energy. “You don’t care about me. He didn’t care about me either.”

 _He can_ _’_ _t have been all that bad. He didn’t sell your sisters out to the Templars, at least,_ Anders thought snippily. He had more sense than to say it though. He didn’t need to air his grievances about his own father to Carver.

“Gracious to the end, aren’t you?” Anders said instead.

The sarcasm did not have the desired effect.

Carver stopped walking and sunk down further towards the ground. “We’re never going to find them. Let’s just take a rest. Forget about the whole thing.”

“Not a chance,” Anders said, tapping the back of Carver’s calves with his boot. “Keep moving. For your sister’s sake if not your own.”

Carver kept walking, but there was something mean and petulant in his voice as he continued. “I had an appointment back in Kirkwall. I’m missing it.”

Anders snorted. “An appointment directly after several weeks in the Deep Roads? Cut it rather close to the wire, didn’t you?”

“What can I say?” Carver said breezily. “I thought I’d be back by now.”

“You don’t think you have more important things to worry about than an appointment at- Where?” Anders snorted. “The Rose?”

“At the Gallows.”

Anders paused minutely, and then forced himself forward. There were only a few things Carver could mean. But he tested out his footing and made sure to manoeuvre them safely over a collapsed pillar, before turning to look at Carver.

It didn’t matter. He couldn’t see anything anyhow in this dark.

“I had an interview. Was thinking about joining up with the Templars,” Carver boasted. “Still think I’m worth saving, magey?”

Anders snorted. “You’re an idiot.”

“Guess you’re just glad I’m out here dying from Blight sickness instead,” Carver hummed in satisfaction.

“If you’d made it back to Kirkwall with this expedition under your belt, you would have been a rich man. And you were ready to go throw that all away to go behead mages out of spite.”

“You know this expedition was my sister’s thing. What was I going to do – spend the rest of my life begging her for handouts? Tell mother she’s picking on me when she doesn’t fork over my allowance?” Carver sneered. “I had to do something. If Ser Maurevar could-” he stopped himself. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

“It does matter!” Anders hissed. “You’ve had opportunities others could only dream of, and enough experience to know better about mages, and you’d still rather go pith us for a living than-!”

“Yes, well, it looks like I’m just awash with opportunities now, aren’t I?” Carver hissed right back.

Anders remembered standing between Templar Lieutenant Rylock and Warden Commander Amell, and how the world had narrowed to a tunnel not unlike this one. To go in one direction meant going back to the Circle and being thrown back in solitary, or worse. To go in the other meant something he’d scarcely understood. But he hadn’t even had the power to take a single step. It was Amell who’d had the power to invoke the Right of Conscription. It was Amell who’d decided the course.

Anders was brought back to the here and now – one path, one way forward – when Carver sighed. “That still wasn’t enough to get you to leave me behind, was it?” he asked.

Anders shook his head. “You’re rather naïve if you think you’re the first patient that’s ever tried to rile me up and drive me off. If you want to give up on yourself, you can do it on your own watch, not mine.”

“Bet a lot of people have tried to drive you off with no success,” Carver snarked. But before Anders could even respond to that, Carver had moved on. “Being a Grey Warden – what’s it like? What will I do, besides fighting darkspawn and all that?”

 _Whatever we want to,_ Warden Commander Amell had told Anders. And it had taken a while for the words to curdle and spoil.

“You’ll go on a lot of expeditions through tunnels like this. Won’t have the easiest time getting a date. And before all that you have to go through a ritual called the Joining,” Anders said. “I can’t tell you the details but, well, if you survive the Joining you’ll survive this bout of Blight poisoning.”

“Lovely,” Carver said. “Can definitely see why everyone’s rushing around trying to hand me to a bunch of people who might get me dead anyway.”

Anders shook his head and soldiered on. Perhaps this wasn’t the best idea after all but…

Carver had been looking for a purpose – something to do with himself and be a part of. And being a Warden was that and preferable, so far as Anders was concerned, to becoming a Templar. Maybe this would be a chance for Carver to do something good with himself, even if he wasn’t exactly joining up willingly.

To be a Grey Warden really was a noble calling, after all, in spite of their other deficiencies. And Anders’s father, and his father before him, had both been Wardens. There was pride in that. And he’d always hoped, if he ever had a son, that he’d carry on the family tradition and-

No, wait. Anders’s father had been a farmer in the summer and a hunter in the winter. He’d never been a Grey Warden. That had been…

Anders scrunched his nose and tried not to scowl. _Dammit, Justice! Keep Kristoff_ _’_ _s memories to yourself!_

Something contrite curled in Anders’s stomach, and he couldn’t tell if that was Justice pulling away apologetically, or just his own guilt. He shouldn't be getting testy. It wasn’t as if Justice could help that they were too many people at once.

Carver was now putting on airs. “Well, if I do succeed in becoming a Warden, you can be bloody sure I won't run away to go live in some sewer.”

“Yes, no doubt you’re better suited for it than me,” Anders said mildly.

This seemed to make Carver wilt, more than anything. As if his own lot and own talents were something to be ashamed of. It seemed to Anders impossibly naïve the way he crumpled down, one leg dragging limp against the stone.

They hobbled forward another few steps. Carver’s knee knocked against his and Carver’s foot scraped against the gravel.

“Look, do you want me to carry you?” Anders asked. “Properly, off the ground, I mean? It would probably be easier than trying to lug you along at my side at this point.”

“Of course I don’t want you to carry me!” Carver had a way of making this sound like an unrivalled offence.

“Fine. Fine,” Anders backed down. “But you better try to hurry it up then because-”

“Well, I can’t, and I think we both know that,” Carver snarled. “Of course I don’t _want_ you to carry me, but I don’t think I have much choice if we’re going to be getting anywhere now, do we?”

Anders waited a moment, before balancing Carver on his feet. He bent down and, when Carver didn’t pull away, he slung his right arm around Carver’s thighs and slung Carver’s torso up over his shoulder.

“Ooph, heavy boy,” Anders said, as the whole of Carver’s weight sunk into him. It was, at least, easier to bear in this configuration.

“Shut up,” Carver said, as he let Anders link his left arm with where Carver’s was hanging off his shoulder.

“It’s good you’ve been eating all your fruits and vegetables at least.”

Carver didn’t seem to have much to say to that.

“It’s also good I’ve passably broad shoulders,” Anders went on to say. “You’d be toppling over the other side of me otherwise.”

Carver whispered something inaudible. Probably about how bony and uncomfortable those shoulders were. Anders felt the muscles in Carver’s arm flex, and then his torso shift as he curled further into Ander’s neck. No response for a moment, as Anders strained to hold Carver aloft as he walked. Then came a shudder. It was another little while before Anders felt something damp leaking through the shoulder of his coat.

Anders scrunched his nose. “Carver, are you-?”

“Shut up,” Carver’s watery voice cracked.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Anders reassured. “Life can bring us all low. It’s not a shameful thing for a man to-”

“Look! I said to shut up, didn’t I?!” Carver demanded, anger choking out the rest of what was in his voice. “I’m not here to make chatter with you so you can feel better while I–!” He hissed, and didn’t appear to be able to get the rest out.

Anders carried him, and left him to cry alone. In the claustrophobic dark, Carver’s hoarse sobs were indistinguishable to Anders from those that had filled the cell in the basement of Kinloch Hold - observed in the same clinical third person, like he’d willed another person’s crying into the empty vacuum of a room.

He hated it. He did it anyhow, but Anders hated it. Carver was such a brat. He didn’t know how much he asked for.

It came to an end though. Just like it always had before.

“Listen…” Carver said softly, when the catharsis began to sink in. “My sister… Take care of her for me.”

Anders frowned, as he took a couple of swift jogging steps through a clear section of tunnel. It was blatantly absurd that this was what Carver had to say coming out the other end of his breakdown, and touched more than one nerve.

“What?” Anders scoffed. “You’re trying to pass off some kind of torch to me? You’re really asking me – the apostate mage who, as you’re quick to point out, lives in a sewer – to look after her for you?”

“Shut up,” Carver snipped. “Who else am I going to ask? The dwarf that gets off mining for story material?”

“Varric’s not half as bad a choice as you’re acting,” Anders disagreed. “But more to the point, it’s not the time for you to be spouting your last will and testament. You shouldn’t be acting like you’re going to die when you still have a chance. When all of us are fighting for you to have a chance.”

“It’s not as if we won’t be parting ways regardless,” Carver doubled down. “And I’m not stupid. I know you like her. Is it really so terrible that I’d ask you to keep an eye on her?!”

“I think she’s made it abundantly clear that she doesn’t want me keeping any eyes on her,” Anders said. “Or men keeping eyes on her in general, for that matter.”

“Ugh,” Carver groaned. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not?” Anders challenged. “It’s not my problem you’d rather play overprotective brother than have a frank discussion with your sister about her sexuality… Maybe that’s what you should be spending this time doing instead. Give her your blessing about Isabela and Merr-”

Carver cut him off. “Weren’t you the one who said not to go around spouting my last rites?!” he snapped. “You’re a fake. You just want me to say what you think I should say.”

Anders sighed. “You caught me. I want you to say what I think you should say. And do what I tell you to do. I want you to live when I tell you to live, and not die until I tell you to die…That’s what every healer wants.”

“That’s what I thought,” Carver said. “Demanding, controlling freak. You don’t want me. You just want someone you can mould into whatever shape suits you and your saviour complex best. Bet you’ll be telling everyone you descended from the heavens like Andraste to carry me to my salvation. Well, you can _shove_ that.” But Carver seemed inordinately pleased by his own assessment, and his words had taken on an easy, smug gait.

He didn’t even protest when Anders tightened his grip on his arm and turned to press a quick kiss to his bicep.

“You know me too well,” Anders allowed. “Now, I’ll bid you to do as I say and survive this, or you won’t be able to tell everyone else how full of it I am.”

“Prick,” Carver said, but didn’t argue.

Anders held back a smile, despite the fact that there wasn’t anyone else to see anyhow. But was distracted by the sound of an explosion up ahead in the tunnel.

He thought he recognised the feel of it – Hawke’s _Walking Bomb_ spell.

“Shit,” Anders said succinctly. He hadn’t been paying attention. But now that he was he thought he could sense them – the darkspawn. Wouldn’t be lucky enough for it to just be the Wardens.

He broke into a run, and Carver’s weight lurched up and down on his shoulder, threatening to topple him. He could see Hawke and Varric up ahead, illuminated by the light of Hawke’s and the enemy’s spells. Hawke’s face flashed in an ugly splatter of tainted black gore. Varric was releasing a volley of arrows. But there were more darkspawn approaching fast, and neither was much for frontline fighting.

“Ow, ow,” Carver said, as his torso slammed down against Anders’s shoulder. “Just put me down already. Put me down and go help the others.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Anders asked, even as he began to sling Carver down, and set him sitting on the ground.

“Yeah, yeah. Just hurry!” Carver said, as he crumpled down.

Anders didn’t need telling twice. He called magelight into his hand, and looked for where Hawke and Varric had dropped their packs, and Anders’s and Carver’s weapons with them. He found them somewhere at the halfway point, and then ran forward to toss a blaze of fire and ice at the encroaching darkspawn horde.

“Good, you’re here!” Hawke shouted to him, between heaving breaths. “Let’s finish this!” She threw a burst of spirit magic at an approaching hurlock.

“We’ll push them back,” Anders reassured.

And for a while, that seemed to work. Just the darkspawn and the flurry of the fight.

But then there was an ugly twang as Varric’s crossbow missed her shot, and a little holler from him as the darkspawn surged forward and cut across the arm of his coat.

Drawing on a little of Justice’s fury, Anders sent a burst of fire to incinerate the darkspawn, and rushed forward to where Varric had collapsed and was clutching his bleeding arm. The last thing they needed was another party member getting their arm full of taint.

The horde had started to thin a little, as Anders drew a healing spell over Varric, holding it longer than he usually would have to make sure the wound closed all the way. Hawke had turned, and was throwing magic to clear out the darkspawn between herself and them.

And then Anders saw it – the likely leader of this party of darkspawn.

An Arcane Horror had materialised behind Hawke, teleporting to a place outside her line of vision. And now it was approaching her, readying a spell with which to blast her. And Anders meant to shout, or redirect his magic from where he was healing Varric, or do _something_ \- when there was a terrific roar.

Carver charged the Horror, digging deep for some reserve of energy he could muster for Hawke if not himself. “Stay away from my sister!” he shouted, as he swung his sword and dove at the monster in a terrifying lunge that toppled them both. He wrestled the darkspawn to the ground, pinning it with his blade.

It was reckless, but in the end it worked. Carver had good instincts it seemed. For the first time, Anders thought he could see it, truly and genuinely and not simply because there were no other options: Carver would make an excellent Grey Warden.

…

They were cleaning up the stragglers when the sound of chattering words, and not simply the movements of the darkspawn horde, echoed from the other side of the tunnel.

Anders eased himself out of his battle stance, as he heard the blade swipe through the last of the darkspawn.

“Anders,” said the voice of their saviours. A voice Anders recognised far too well.

He sighed and turned, double checking as if he might have been mistaken. But, no, he recognised the man’s stern face as well as his voice. “Fancy meeting you here, Stroud,” he tried not to grimace.

Stroud crossed his arms. “I could say the same. I thought you were through fighting Darkspawn.”

Anders tried to scope how much the troop standing behind Stroud knew, as they whispered amongst themselves. _Lookie, it’s Anders – the abomination deserter who’d carved his way through a unit of Templars and more than a few Wardens on his way out of Vigil’s Keep. Everyone point and jeer._ Or perhaps it was something more scandalous than that. Anders supposed he’d missed a lot of the hazing rituals and banal locker room chats that passed between Warden foot soldiers, having been a personal acquaintance of the Hero of Ferelden even before his Joining. So he had no sense of how spicy some of the gossip had gotten as it passed among the lower ranks.

Though he supposed Stroud wasn’t the worst person he could have run into on the scouting route outlined in the maps. Stroud made things… complicated. But at least he wasn’t likely to have Anders killed or dragged back to base and written up for desertion.

 _I mean, probably…_ Anders had seen jilted Templars do worse to their illicit mage lovers, but Stroud wouldn’t do that to him… Probably…

“I’m not here to fight Darkspawn,” Anders forced himself to say. “I came looking for you.”

“ _We_ came looking for you,” Hawke was quick to cut in. She dragged Carver forward on her shoulder. It seemed almost comical, with Carver sprawled sideways to make up for the fact that she was less than three-quarters his height.

_Maker, Anders still found her so endearing. In spite of everything._

“You mean, the boy as a recruit…? Of course you do.” Stroud sighed, before turning to Hawke. “Of course you do. I know this comes as no comfort to you but we do not recruit Grey Wardens out of pity. It is no kindness.”

“No kindness necessary!” Hawke chirped, in that voice that was utterly unwilling to be denied. “Carver happens to be a fine warrior. You’d be an idiot not to recruit him.”

“Be that as it may, I cannot.”

Anders sighed. “Stroud,” he urged, before their back-and-forth descended into the two of them literally butting heads. “Trust me when I say this one is worth your time.”

Stroud fixed Anders with a look, and Anders was disturbed to find how well he recognised it even now. The one that said: _Fine. But you owe me_. “Being a Grey Warden is not a cure, it is a calling,” he told Hawke. But then he acquiesced.

Hawke’s face had all the gratitude Carver’s didn’t.

“Let us give them a moment. Anders – to me.”

Anders held back a groan. He supposed if Stroud was going to collect favours, he would have to do it quickly. He nodded to Varric – Hawke and Carver too busy with one another – before following Stroud away from both Hawke and the rest of the Warden troop.

“Stroud…” Anders said, when it was just them.

“Anders,” Stroud returned. And then he got straight to the point, just like always. “I wanted to tell you: I am sorry about Pounce.” His lip curled and scrunched – a wiggling line too thin. “I am no longer convinced I made the correct decision when I petitioned to have him removed from your care. If it is any consolation, the last I heard he was doing well with Lady Delilah.”

It was a surprise, really, although Anders wasn’t sure why. Of all the things that had transpired between himself and Stroud and the rest of the Wardens, the separation from Ser Pounce-a-Lot was simultaneously the biggest and smallest. In a lot of ways, Stroud had been correct when he’d said Anders was unfit as a pet owner.

But that wouldn’t do, so Anders crossed his arms. “Yes, well, you should be sorry,” he said petulantly.

Stroud sighed and his eyebrows furrowed. “Really, Anders? Everything you’ve done – getting yourself possessed, running away from your responsibilities – and I am the only one making apologies for what has happened between us?”

Anders scoffed. “I’m hardly a runaway when you and Amell have made it perfectly clear you don’t want me around.”

“Anders, you were spreading inflammatory rhetoric through all ranks of the Wardens,” Stroud protested. “The amount of scrutiny you brought to the order from the Chantry. Warden Commander Amell is still under suspicion regarding Rylock’s death, and it has irrevocably tainted our relationship with the Circle.”

Anders frowned at the ground. Yes, wasn’t that just typical. He’d got along perfectly fine with Amell, with other mages, until the Templars had made the cost of associating with him too high to pay. And somehow that was his fault, and not theirs.

“And that is to say nothing of what happened when you and Justice joined,” Stroud added. He shook his head. “We were your calling, and you turned on us and deserted.”

Anders had a calling older than that. “The Circles,” he reminded. “They are not what Andraste would have wanted.”

“There are many things Andraste would not have wanted.” And Stroud looked certain as he said this. He was as immovable as ever.

This is why they had never really worked. Two immovable objects, and the only unstoppable force between them was Justice.

Stroud sighed. “This is not the conversation I hoped to have with you.”

“You were hoping to have one, were you?” Anders asked.

“Yes,” Stroud said simply. “To leave things better off than last we had.”

Anders considered this a moment. He looked at the hard lines on Stroud’s face, and the swooping curl of facial hair.

“You have a moustache now,” Anders noted.

Stroud said nothing.

“Shaved your beard…” Anders pondered. “It’s a shame. I always liked the beard. It always scratched in just the right places, you know?”

“Ah, well done,” Stroud deadpanned. “You have succeeded in finding something I wish to discuss less than the Circle of Magi.”

“I’ve been told I’m good at that,” Anders said. “Terror of Kinloch and Professional Annoyance, at your service.”

“Indeed.” Stroud grimaced. “I suppose I better take the boy and be gone. He cannot have that much more time.” He paused minutely- “Goodbye, Anders.” -and then walked past.

The disagreement left Anders feeling nostalgic, rather than the type of infuriated he often felt with Fenris or Aveline or Carver. He supposed it was just a sign of how truly far in the past all of this was. They had long since chosen their paths, paths that would lead them nowhere but apart. Now they simply had to walk them.

Anders waited a minute, and then followed after.

Carver was being passed from Hawke’s shoulder to Stroud’s, and Stroud accepted the weight with a surprising amount of gentleness.

Carver looked at his sister. “Then… I guess this is it.” And there was nothing more to say.

He took a couple of stumbling steps, with Stroud’s support, up to where Anders stood between him and the rest of the Warden troop.

“Thanks for everything,” Carver managed wearily. And then before this could be mistaken for politeness he added, “Or for nothing.”

Anders reached a hand up and clasped his shoulder. “Take care of yourself.”

Stroud huffed and shook his head, but allowed the goodbye.

And, in that moment, Anders wanted to be for Carver what Karl had been for him once. He wanted to pull Carver to him by the cheeks and kiss his forehead, to embrace him and tell him he was safe and promise everything would be okay now and forever.

But though his hand lingered for a moment on Carver’s shoulder, he let the boy be pulled away and the distance between them expand.

It would have given Stroud the wrong impression, if Anders had held the boy in front of him like that. And anyhow, as Justice was quick to remind him, it was an injustice to lie.


End file.
